Tempo:
CHAP, vin
CO-OPERATION OF GULAB SINGH
225
risk by following the modes of strangers to which he im2. was unused, and he failed in rendering the Sikh battalions as decorous and orderly as English regiments. His prudence and ill success were looked upon as collusion and insincerity, and he was thought to be in league with Akbar Khan for the destruction of the army of an obnoxious European power. Still his aid was held ^
to be essential, and the local British officers proposed to bribe him by the offer of Jalalabad, independent of his sovereign Sher Singh. The scheme was justly condemned by Mr. Clerk,^ the Khaibar Pass was forced in
the month of April, and the auxiliary Sikhs acquitted themselves to the satisfaction of the English general, without any promise having been made to the Raja of Jammu, who gladly hurried to the Ladakh frontier to look after interests dearer to him than the success or the vengeance of foreigners. It was designed by Gene- Kabul ret^^^"ral Pollock to leave the whole of the Sikh division district, while in holding that assist Jalalabad, to at the main English army went to Kabul; but the proper interposition of Col. Lawrence ^ enabled a portion of the Lahore troops to share in that retributive march, as they had before shared in the first invasion, and fully shown their fitness for meeting difficulties left to do so in their own way.
when
The proposition of conferring Jalalabad on Gulab Discussions Singh was taken up in a modified form by the new j^fg^abad Governor-General, Lord Ellenborough. As his lord- and the ship's views became formed, he laid it down as a prin- limits of ciple that neither the English nor the Sikh Government sikh domi"*°"should hold dominion beyond the Himalayas and the 'Safed Koh' of Kabul; and as the Durrani alliance seemed to be severed, there was little to apprehend from Jammu and Barakzai intrigues. It was, therefore, urged that Gulab Singh should be required by the Maharaja to relinquish Ladakh, and to accept Jalalabad on equal terms of dependency on the Punjab.^ Mr. Clerk to Government, 19th March 1842. Clerk to Government, 13th Feb. 1842. The officers referred to are Major Mackeson* and Lieut. -Col. Sir Henry Lawrence, whose names are so intimately, and in so many ways honourably, identified with the career of the English in the north-west of India. 3Lieut.-Col. Lawrence to Major Mackeson, 23rd Aufe. 1842. Lieut.-Col. Lawrence's article in the Calcutta Review (No. Ill, p. 180) may also be advantageously referred to about the proceedings at Peshawar under Col. Wild, Sir George Pollock, and Raja Gulab Singh. * Government to Mr. Clerk, 27th April 1842. 1 Cf.
2 Mr.
15
CO-OPERATION OF GULAB SINGH
225
risk by following the modes of strangers to which he im2. was unused, and he failed in rendering the Sikh battalions as decorous and orderly as English regiments. His prudence and ill success were looked upon as collusion and insincerity, and he was thought to be in league with Akbar Khan for the destruction of the army of an obnoxious European power. Still his aid was held ^
to be essential, and the local British officers proposed to bribe him by the offer of Jalalabad, independent of his sovereign Sher Singh. The scheme was justly condemned by Mr. Clerk,^ the Khaibar Pass was forced in
the month of April, and the auxiliary Sikhs acquitted themselves to the satisfaction of the English general, without any promise having been made to the Raja of Jammu, who gladly hurried to the Ladakh frontier to look after interests dearer to him than the success or the vengeance of foreigners. It was designed by Gene- Kabul ret^^^"ral Pollock to leave the whole of the Sikh division district, while in holding that assist Jalalabad, to at the main English army went to Kabul; but the proper interposition of Col. Lawrence ^ enabled a portion of the Lahore troops to share in that retributive march, as they had before shared in the first invasion, and fully shown their fitness for meeting difficulties left to do so in their own way.
when
The proposition of conferring Jalalabad on Gulab Discussions Singh was taken up in a modified form by the new j^fg^abad Governor-General, Lord Ellenborough. As his lord- and the ship's views became formed, he laid it down as a prin- limits of ciple that neither the English nor the Sikh Government sikh domi"*°"should hold dominion beyond the Himalayas and the 'Safed Koh' of Kabul; and as the Durrani alliance seemed to be severed, there was little to apprehend from Jammu and Barakzai intrigues. It was, therefore, urged that Gulab Singh should be required by the Maharaja to relinquish Ladakh, and to accept Jalalabad on equal terms of dependency on the Punjab.^ Mr. Clerk to Government, 19th March 1842. Clerk to Government, 13th Feb. 1842. The officers referred to are Major Mackeson* and Lieut. -Col. Sir Henry Lawrence, whose names are so intimately, and in so many ways honourably, identified with the career of the English in the north-west of India. 3Lieut.-Col. Lawrence to Major Mackeson, 23rd Aufe. 1842. Lieut.-Col. Lawrence's article in the Calcutta Review (No. Ill, p. 180) may also be advantageously referred to about the proceedings at Peshawar under Col. Wild, Sir George Pollock, and Raja Gulab Singh. * Government to Mr. Clerk, 27th April 1842. 1 Cf.
2 Mr.
15
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